Monday, June 20, 2011

Dame Edna stars in The Hobbit

Maybe not Dame Edna Everage but her manager (and many say the two have never been seen in the same room at the same time) Barry Humphries is to join the cast of The Hobbit.

The Peter Jackson $500M movie starts filming next March in New Zealand and Humphries will play the Goblin King.

It's not Barry's first acting role. He appeared as Rupert Murdoch in the 1980's TV series 'Selling Hitler' about the scandal involving the Sunday Times newspaper and the fake Hitler diaries, the Kath & Kim movie and Barry McKenzie Holds His Own based on thePrivate Eyemagazine comic script.

Humphries contributed some immortal lines to the 2 McKenzie films such as when McKenzie is collared at a London party by a pompous Hooray Henry who asks him : "tell me Mr McKenzie, is it true Australia is full of homosexuals?" to which McKenzie replies: "No that's just the publicity we put out to attract the Pommy migrants"

Tomorrow at mid-day Dame Edna Everage will give a twenty minute talk at the Black & White charity committee's Woman of Achievement lunch. The Shuttle bring carry a full report.

In the meantime-here is a slice of Aussie culture from a Barry McKenzie fillum with the wonderful John leMesurier.
And if you think that's an exaggeration : In 2007 newly elected PM Kevin Rudd dumped former PM John Howard's 'migrant test' that required prospective migrants to know amongst other things who Don Bradman and MervynRichardson were!.( Richardson invented a lawn mower).